If You Say Nothing…You’ll Stand for Nothing

It may be a harsh and provocative way to catch your attention to talk about human sex-trafficking, but…

I always knew that I would become more of a philanthropist. My goals were always to get myself out of the lifestyle I grew up in and show what was possible. I was NEVER going to be someone’s property or a statistic.

When I became a mother at a young age, I knew I had to protect my daughter at all cost. As I grew older, that haunting fear of your child being taken advantage of didn’t subside, even after the youngest was brought into the world. No, in fact, both of their fun, naive childhood lives have been in some ways stripped from them when it came to going away to camps or girl sleepovers, whether at their friend’s house or their friends at our house. Neither was ever an option. Truth be told, they have only slept over at three of my friend’s homes in the entire 25 and 18 years they have been here on earth. Why?? I’m sure you can fill in the gaps. I would love to say it was only one monster. Sadly, that was far from the case.

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I thought moving to Atlanta eight years ago was to salvage the harsh recession our nation was going through and the pressure it had put on our family, which I share in my book. During the last eight years in Georgia, I have learned so much about myself. I’ve learned what it means to take care of your family even when there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. But even more so, I’ve learned what God had planned for me.

While I thought I had left my past behind years ago, I found that it seemed to want to catch up like some high school reunion. Except, for me, these weren’t fond memories at all, and I had no interest in attending.

However, God was telling me that my calling was to fight for more than money, fame, and riches. He wants me to take these blessings and use them to fight for the greater good, and to do the very thing I did for my children, but this time for others.
Never would I have thought that this mission would be using my career in the beauty industry as the tool that would take me on the journey of healing and help others fight that may not be brave enough to fight for themselves.

And now, I am using an industry to sell all things beauty for a monstrous trail of anything but beautiful: Human Sex-Trafficking.

It’s amazing when I knew for the first time that I was hearing God speaking to me. While I believe he knew I was listening, he also knew the devil was strongly working on me at the same time.

So the next message was no longer a whisper from God. It was physical piece of paper that landed on my driveway. In fact, it was a nightmare close to home. This wasn’t the first time I came close to my own children becoming a victim of this atrocity. However, these children were victims in my suburban community.

That’s right; you read it, the operation was in my backyard. You haven’t heard anything until you read the article written by CBS46.com “9 people, including 7 children, rescued in human trafficking sting” If you think it’s only men luring your son or daughters into this ferocious black market industry, think again 🙁 . Women are just as guilty of recruiting children into the sex trade world.

I knew that Georgia was a prominent state for sex- trafficking. But I didn’t know if I was brave enough to jump in yet? It was when I was faced with clinical depression, among other health issues in 2015, that I started writing Shear Destiny: 50 Ways to Map Out Your Career and Win when I was learning how God’s plan was bigger than mine. And over the next fourteen months, He was preparing me the way that He knew I needed, which was through healing, direction, and understanding that He didn’t bring me this far to let me go, but rather to use me as a vessel. After I had launched my book, it was incredible to learn how many people in the beauty industry would begin to share with me how they were also victims to this epidemic. I have been so blessed to learn more about the people I work closely with on a much deeper level, simply by sharing my ‘WHY.’ I have been blessed to witness HIS grace and mercy through others that choose not to see themselves as victims but as Victorious. You can even watch one of my dear friends testimonial that I met through a REDKEN Specialist class back in 2012 when I started my journey with them. To witness one take back their POWER is such a huge WIN and INSPIRING moment. You can watch for yourself 🙂 . I am, day in and day out, surrounded by more and more women and men with deep scars but brave hearts that are willing to help me fight this cause. What I thought was going to be the start of my own foundation led me to Gods greater plan: The next step….. Which I will share with you next week 🙂 for now, I think this is the prefect introduction to understanding why I am taking this stance and can only hope and pray that you no longer say nothing and stand for something. That stance would be the future….OUR CHILDREN 🙂